


Secure

by Halo793



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Poor Bucky, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Romance, lets be honest, maybe smut, more than likely smut, my poor baby, non-canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-23 22:46:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4895188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halo793/pseuds/Halo793
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Captain America: The Winter Soldier. <br/>Steve finally finds Bucky, held up in a warehouse, with another runaway assassin from Hydra.<br/>Relearning his memories is a long road, filled with confusion and struggle. But with the one person he has trusted over the past 70 years and his long-lost best friend, at least he won't have to travel this road alone</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is based off of a dream I had a while back. In the dream, Bucky was a mess. Maybe a little out of character. The first chapter was really all I had of the dream... so from there we'll just see where it goes. :)

Who were these people? Most of them were armed, all of them looked just as terrified as he felt. She had only been gone ten minutes and Hydra had already found them, he was sure it was them. Who else would be trying to kill him? A tall blond man stood in front of him; the man never attacked him, only used defensive maneuvers whenever attacked. The soldier was wounded, from this fight and one about a week prior. His steel arm hung heavy and almost useless at his side. In his right hand he gripped the only weapon he could find, a screwdriver, as he looked around like a wild animal. He was outnumbered, but that had never slowed him down before. The blond man, the one from the bridge, the one from the helicarrier… he was trying to talk to the soldier who wasn’t listening to a word he said. He wanted to cut and run, but he couldn’t leave without her. 

She rushed into the doorway and stopped when she saw all of the armed guards surrounding James, who clutched a tool ready to pounce on the man in front of him. She saw his fist start toward the stranger and she softly called his name, effectively freezing him in place. His fist stopped only inches from the other man. James shoulders heaved with deep breaths as he turned to see her in the doorway.

“James,” she said again, and his shoulders slumped in relief as he fell to his knees. She was there on the floor in front of him in a second and he fell into her, grasping at her with all the might he had left.

“Ma’am?” she glared at whoever spoke and went back to the broken assassin in her lap.

“Shh,” she held him to her chest and ran her fingers through his wild hair, “You’re ok. You’re safe. We’re safe,” he whimpered slightly and curled on the floor, using her lap as a pillow as she noticed some guards step toward them and she leaned over protectively, “Back the fuck up!” she growled

She looked down at him and continued to stroke his hair, “James, you’re going to sleep now, ok? Just for two hours,” she looked at the clock and at the blond man who seemed to be in charge, “It’s 1:18, I’ll wake you at 3:18,” he shook his head ‘no’.

“Yes, James,” She said softly, “I’m not going anywhere, I’ll be right here when you wake up. You’re safe,” she placed her palm on his forehead, “I’ll be right here,” she whispered as his breathing slowed and his eyes slipped shut. She kept looking down at him, now sleeping peacefully, as she smoothed his hair.

“Ma’am,” the blond man drew her attention, “We need to take him…”

“No,”

“We’re going to help him but you have to move,”

“I said, no,” she moved forward a little more to hide James, “I wasn’t saying that to calm him down, he’s not going anywhere that I don’t,” the man paused and looked around the group, “Well, you’d better get to work, because I’m waking him up at 3:18 whether you’re done or not,”

He nodded and as they were about to lift him to move, a man in the back of the room spoke, “How did he trust you so easily?”

She looked at the black man over the stretcher they had just put James on, “Because I’m the only person in the last 70 years who has been kind to him,”

The room went silent and she started pushing the stretcher out the door along with the tall man who had started to introduce himself.

“I know who you are,” she said, she wasn’t angry, her voice was very level, “Mr. Rogers, how can I trust you?”

He threw open the doors to an armored van and helped her lift the gurney, “Because, I’m the only one who still cares about him… well, until I met you, I suppose,” he turned and yelled for the driver to go.

She sifted through the first aid supplies and started to clean James’ wounds, wiping blood off his face, “Where are we going?”

“A facility where he’ll be safe… where we can help,”

There was silence in the van for a few moments before she spoke in a darker tone, “I hope you know that you and your men are only alive because his arm started glitching after Hydra fell. And because I got there in time,”

Steve was quiet, looking down at his hands, “I know,” he sighed deeply, “I hoped he’d remember me… after pulling me out of the water and all,”

“He does,” she tried to console, “But you should understand… it’s fragmented and mixed in will a million other memories that pop up out of order and spliced together… nothing is coherent for him right now. He’s never been let out this long,” her voice turned soft at the end as she tucked some of his hair behind his ear.

Steve stared at her. A black jumpsuit with the sleeves torn in places let blood soak through. Her bloody matted hair was pushed out of her face in a sad excuse of a ponytail. Her face was covered in more grime than Bucky’s was. It was clear she was intent on caring for him this past week and not herself, she hadn’t even changed her own clothes. Her legs were pretty torn up too.

“Are you hurt? Do you need that looked at?” Steve asked.

She sat across from him and waved it off, “I’m fine,” she took a deep breath, “So, you haven’t asked who I am or how I know him. I’ll tell you everything if you promise not to kill me half way through… my past does not dictate who I am,”

Steve’s eyebrows pulled together as she leaned forward on her knees and sighed, “My name is… well… I don’t know my name, and anyone who ever did is dead. They called me Arsyn… James always called me Arie,” She smiled slightly, “He was meant to shape the future… I was meant to burn down the past, make a clear path,” she looked directly at Steve, “I never had the will to fight them. I followed orders simply out of self-preservation. I was ruthless and cold. Then they put me in charge of brainwashing James. It broke my heart every time, but they’d kill us both if I didn’t. Somehow, after every neural stripping… he still remembered me. I was the only one, other than high ranking people like Pierce, who knew his real name. I snuck a peek at his file once,” she reached out to hold Bucky’s hand, “When SHIELD and Hydra started to fall, I grabbed every file I could about him… so they couldn’t erase him from history like they did me,”

“Do you have them?”

“I put them in a safety deposit right before everything went to shit,” she nodded.

Steve took a deep breath, “I hate to ask this,” he started, “Are you two romantically involved?”

She couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her, “Yes, Captain, we have been ‘romantically involved’ as you say,”

“Have been?”

She rubbed her thumb over the back of James’ hand, “Depends on what he remembers. Lately, he has too much mayhem in his thoughts to even consider it. I’m his stability right now… we’ll go from there when it’s time,”

In the long silence that followed, they felt the van come to a stop, “We’re here,” Steve announced. 

She helped roll Bucky into the concrete building where they were met by doctors and scientist who tried to push her out of the way.

“Ma’am, I need you to move,” One said as they grabbed her shoulders to shove her out of the way. They were shocked when she didn’t move an inch against the pressure, she only pressed her palm to the nurse’s forehead and they dropped to the floor.

“She goes with him!” Steve ordered the staff before walking next to her, “What the hell did you do?!”

“Don’t worry, they’ll wake up later,” she snapped.

“You’re explaining that later!”

“Whatever,” she turned to an engineer there to work on the arm and started explaining what needed to be done. The poor engineer looked like she’d seen a ghost, “Never mind,” Arsyn growled, “Do you have anyone who knows this kind of technology?”

“Stark might be able to,” Steve suggested.

“That could be a really bad idea…”

“Why? He can help,”

“Because of how they died… his parents,”

“They died in a car wreck…” Steve said slowly before looking between her and Bucky.

“I mean… technically, yeah,” she explained and Steve’s face looked heartbroken, “Orders are orders… Howard knew too much. If it makes any difference… I did it for him,” she said referring to Bucky, “I didn’t want him to shoulder that guilt, he had enough,”

“Well… thanks… for him, I guess. Look, Stark doesn’t need to know anything yet,”

“It wasn’t a huge secret, Steve! I’m sure he looked into it and knows it was Hydra!”

“He doesn’t have to know who you two are yet, we’ll get to that later,” Steve pleaded, “Unless you know how…”

“I’ve only watched it done…” she replied warily.

“For how long though?”

She sighed, “A few decades… I can do it, it’ll take time though. I just haven’t had the tools,”

“Tell us what you need and I’ll make it happen,”

“Captain, we only have an hour and twenty three minutes left. It will take me much longer than that and I don’t want to wake him in the middle of it. I’d rather do it with him awake anyway,” she watched like a hawk as a team cut away his clothes and started to work on his wounds, “Just gather the things,” she handed him a list. Apparently she’d been prepared for this. Steve passed it off to another agent, stressing the secrecy of the situation.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, while we have time, how did you…” Steve started to ask about her encounter with the nurse earlier, but she cut him off.

“I manipulate energy waves. Electricity, radio, light… brain waves,”

“How?”

“Like you… like him,” she gestured between the super soldiers, “I’m a product of necessity… of war and science. I guess my cocktail of serum had a little something special. It’s hard to know,”

“What do you mean?”

“When I woke up from the drug induced coma… I sort of killed everyone in the room, including the scientist who formulated it. I don’t remember it, but the reports say it didn’t look like I did it on purpose. It was just everyone I touched ended up dead. I refused physical human contact for a long time after that… before learning how to deal with it,”

“So you fight up close,”

“Not necessarily. If they are in contact with or close enough to an electrical source… I can use that from a reasonable distance to incapacitate,” Steve raised his eyebrows, not hiding how impressed he was, “Captain, I see the world differently than you do. I see it in waves. Stark’s building here is supposed to block out radio waves… while it does a good job, it’s not perfect, some are getting through. It’s hard to stop energy, Captain; nearly impossible,”

They stayed relatively silent for another hour as she scrutinized every movement the medical staff made. They finished with eleven minutes to spare. With seven minutes left they had all of her supplies ready.

“Alright, on your toes. I’m waking him up. No noise, no quick movements, no lights, and NO shots. Understand?” she addressed the group in the room. Everyone nodded slowly, all with the same look of terror in their eyes. She smirked, “Oh, and he can smell fear,” she watched as a few of them mentally panicked, “I’m kidding. Just trying to ease some tension… guess I’m not as funny as I used to be,”

Arie stood leaning over him, one hand holding down his right arm and the other resting on his forehead, “James, it’s Arie,” she spoke softly and sweetly as his eyes darted beneath his eyelids, “James, I’m right here, you’re safe,”

Bucky jerked awake with his right hand grasping at the sheets of the hospital bed. His pupils were pinpoints as they focused in on her.

She smiled warmly as she stroked his hair back, “Hey,” she glanced at the clock, “3:16, two minutes early,”

“Location? Mission?” he rasped.

“Safe house bunker. Med-evac. You were wounded. We’ve got you all patched up,”

He let out a shaky sigh, “Arm?”

“I haven’t started,” she slid her hand into his right, “Wanted you awake,” he gave a short nod and she lifted his bed into a seated position. He looked around the room, assessing every person with the eyes of a feral hunter.

“Indicate objective,” he growled at the group, some of which shuffled back a step at his tone.

“Nonviolent operatives,” she explained beside him as she sorted through her tools, “They’re here to help, James. You know I wouldn’t let them near you if they weren’t,”

His head turned to her slowly, taking in her quick working hands before speaking softly, “Arie?”

She turned to him and smiled, “Yeah, it’s me,”

“Secure?”

“Yes, Jay, the area is secure,”

“No,” she was sitting on his left side so he had to turn his body to touch her with his right hand, his left wouldn’t move, “You?”

“I’m safe,” she nodded, “We both are,”

He trusted her almost irrationally, leaning back with a relieved sigh, “Safe,” if she said they were ok, then he could relax.

He kept his arm laying across his body to hold her hand tightly in his for a while longer. Focusing on his breathing, he let his eyes slip shut. Stroking his thumb along her skin always calmed him, so that’s what he did. After about thirty seconds of motionless silence, Steve spoke.

“Ma’am,”

The glare she turned on him was petrifying, “It takes time, sir,” she made sure not to use his name.

“We don’t have time to sit and rest,” he protested.

Her words were snarled between clenched teeth, “If you rush or interrupt this process I will make sure you beg for death,”

The room fell silent other than the sound of guards adjusting the hold on their weapons. Steve held out a hand to tell them to stop. After another agonizingly long minute, James opened his eyes and locked his gaze with her and nodded. Placing her hand on his left shoulder, there was a sound of electricity crackling before a panel opened on his bicep. She turned to the laptop she had requested, inserting a flash-drive that she dug out of her bra, before plugging a cord into his arm and attaching it to the computer. She began typing quickly, staring at the screen.

“Am I allowed to ask questions?” Steve said quietly.

“I would prefer you didn’t… but seeing as you just did, go ahead,” she grumbled.

“What are you doing?”

“Re-programming. I’m setting it up to run on its own program… not connected to Hydra,” she explained. James flinched at the mention of his previous ‘employer’ and she shushed him softly, repeating the word ‘secure’ a few times until he replied with the same.

“When they fell, the server went off-line, interfering with the function. Slowly, the whole program shut down,” she continued her work at a dizzying speed, fingers flying across the keyboard, “This should make sure it doesn’t happen again. Once I’m done with this he’ll have mobility and I can find out what needs repairs,” 

Bucky watched her curiously. With her working on him he wasn’t afraid, but interested. Her calm explanation of her work and process seemed to put him at ease.

“Information reassuring,” he murmured, he was very robotic after just waking up, it would wear off in about an hour, “Continue information… please,” she paused to smile at him and reach up to touch his cheek carefully.

“I’m almost done here, just basic programming for movement and use, we’ll go back and get fancy later,” she hit a few more buttons and clicked around the screen, “Coming online. Wait for motion instruction,” he nodded once.

“Palm up.” It was slow, but it worked and he looked relived, “Palm down, now raise arm,” there were a few clicks and the arm protested the movement, “Good, back down,” she sighed and put on magnifying glasses and picked up a sundering tool, “Now we have a place to start,” she opened a panel between his shoulder and elbow, exposing circuits, “Tell me if it hurts,” again, he only nodded once.

She settled into the work, using the hair thin wires she had requested to replace ones that couldn’t be salvaged. When he would wince, she would apologize soothingly, some of the sensors were woven into his nervous system to relay information. After two and a half hours tinkering with different sections of his arm, he had about 95% movement back. She leaned back with a sigh, sweating slightly under the bright hot surgery lights. 

Taking off the magnifying glasses she rubbed her eyes, “If I stare at one more circuit I’ll go blind,” she chuckled, “I can tweak it and clean it up later,”

His now mobile left hand reached out to her, taking her hand and gaining her attention, “Thank you,” it was the most earnest gratefulness she’d ever heard. She mimicked his signature single nod.

“Jay,” Arie spoke very slowly and calmly, “Mission intel was faulty. Captain America is not a threat,” he nodded along, trusting her every word, “James, I want you to meet Steve Rogers,” she held her hand out in Steve’s direction and he stepped forward just a few feet with a small smile.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, inspecting the man before him. The man from the warehouse… from the helicarrier… the one from the bridge… the one from the war…

“I thought you were smaller,” his voice formed the words without thought.

Steve’s grin grew wide, “Hey, Buck,”

Bucky’s right hand pressed into his forehead, trying to remember that name, that person he had once been, “James… Buchannan… Barnes…” he muttered with his eyes pinched shut.

“That’s right, Jay, that’s right,” Arie reassured beside him before looking up at Cap, “We’ve been working on it. It’s slow, but he’s sorting it out… putting the pieces together,”

Steve and Arie smiled softly at one another, “Thank you,” it was almost as earnest as James earlier, “I could never repay you for all you’ve done. I’ll never be able to thank you enough,”

“Just don’t separate us, that’s good enough for me,” 

“No,” James said quickly, “Don’t. Don’t take her away. Please,” he begged.

“No one’s taking her away, Buck, not ever,” Steve guaranteed, “Now, onto the task of getting you to the tower and collecting the information you have stored. If… if that’s ok with you?”


End file.
